Emmett Fox: Lectures and Lessons on Life

Emmet Fox: New Thought minister

I've read Emmett Fox for many years and have gained from his views on the Bible and his ideas about God and the conditions of mankind. No matter whether you agree with Emmett Fox or not - reading his work is never a waste of time. You will always come out ahead for the time spent. Here are some excerpts:

While Emmet Fox lived he addressed some of the largest audiences ever gathered to hear a New Thought minister. His books and pamphlets have been distributed to over three million people and it can be conservatively estimated that they have come into the hands of ten million. Fox's secretary was the mother of one of the men who worked with Alcoholics Anonymous co-founder Bill Wilson, and partly as a result of this connection early AA groups often went to hear Fox. His writing especially "The Sermon on the Mount", became popular in AA.

The influence of Emmet Fox in the propagation of New Thought ideas lies not simply in the large number of his readers, but in the fact that he is so widely read works by ministers of all denominations. A check in large denominational bookstores in various cities from time to time has revealed that Emmet Fox's books are in constant demand; and these are the stores in which ministers chiefly buy their books. They are probably not aware that he is a New Thought minister, yet they devour his books like manna., There is nothing sectarian, certainly, in the titles "The Sermon on the Mount" and "The Ten Commandments", nor is there anything about them outwardly to indicate that they are New Thought, and nearly half a century after his death, the writings of Emmet Fox remain influential.

"My own shall come to me"

From an address given by Dr. Fox at Unity Headquarters in 1936.

There is a poem that is popular in Truth circles, which incorporates the idea that nothing, "can keep my own away from me". It is a wonderful poem. John Burroughs, who wrote it, was inspired, as all true poets are. It was a favorite in the Truth center in London for many years, but I didn't find that most Truth students understood it. "My own shall come to me", they say glibly, and then they sit down and fold their hands and hope the Lord will get busy; but in my experience, He never has.

I have known good people who have said for twenty-five years, "My own shall come to me", and it has been coming all the time, but it has never arrived. They have been thinking and talking in generalities.

"The stars come nightly to the sky; The tidal wave unto the sea; Nor time, nor space, nor deep, nor high Can keep my own away from me".

True, but what is your own? That is the whole point. What is your own? Your own is what you are getting, and as long as you remain the person you are, you will keep on getting that. Why is it that nothing ever happens to most people? They are born casually, they grow up casually, they go to school casually, fall into a job casually, meet someone and get married casually, then one or two children come along casually. They go through life this way, and then pray for the end to come. They are always going to do something wonderful, but they never do because their mentality is casual.

Some of my students say, "Well, now, I haven't demonstrated yet, but I know it is coming at the right time." I say, "What is the right time"? Now is the "accepted time". Now is the day of salvation. If you sit down and wait for things to happen, "for health, for prosperity, for understanding", you will remain in that atmosphere, that attitude of simply waiting for something. If you want health, if you want understanding, if you want spiritual growth, and if you take the appointed means of God to get it, then your own will come to you. But nothing comes to you automatically, except what the race mind brings automatically.

In the Jesus Christ teaching we learn to draw ourselves out of the race mind, and to tune in to Divine Mind. Then things begin to happen.

You have to make the contact with Divine Mind yourself. God never did anything for you and He never will. God never did anything for you or to you. He does it through you. He doesn't grow a rose for a rosebush. He grows it through the bush and the rose petals. He doesn't make a sunset for the sky. He makes a sunset through the sky. When you know the Truth, that is God working in you and through you. Nothing happens; you demonstrate.

Some people, of course, attract failure; some attract sorrow, some sickness. A friend of mine reads medical books, and he knows about all kinds of diseases. When he finds a new disease, he is quite pleased and he is always sick. Studying diseases is his hobby.

I heard the manager of a drugstore in London say that some people come in and pick up little bottles all over the store. They are always sick. "My own shall come to me".

You are what you think. That is your identity. And remember that in Mind, there is no extension. Until you learn the Truth, you dwell in the senses: sight, hearing, touch. The senses tell me that a wall is so many feet away. What is space? It means I can't get to the wall. What is time? It means the wall is out of reach. But in Mind there is no extension. The wall is a few feet away. I could get there if the building caught fire, or if a tiger came in the window, in a split second.

From Los Angeles, you get to New York by train in two days; by plane, in a few hours. But I can think of New York as quickly as I can of something a few feet away. There is no extension in Mind. You are where your thoughts are. You know this is true, but do you realize it?

You are where you think. If you think of a person, you are with that person mentally, and you are just as close to him as if you accompanied him. If someone thinks of a sister-in-law or somebody else who was unkind, then he is in the company of a person he doesn't like. That is why you should be careful whom you think about. If you start to think unhappy thoughts, say, "Christ is in you", and let the person go. You don't have to like anyone, but neither do you have to think unkindly of him. Say, "The Christ is in him", and let him go.

Until you take your thinking in hand and begin to steer it, you cannot get anywhere. Your direction is in your thought. You have no dominion over material direction. The scientists, the physicists, are usually deterministic, because in the realm of matter, determination is correct. Jesus said, "Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his span of life"? Your free will lies in your thought realm. Suppose you jump into a taxi and say, "I want to go to Grand Central," and then in a few minutes you say, "No, take me to the airport." The driver would say, "All right." Then you would say: "Grand Central." "Airport." "Grand Central" "Airport." Pretty soon, he would say, "Well, until you make up your mind, I can't take you anywhere."

But isn't this what most people do all day long? They don't know what they want, they don't know where they want to go, they don't know what they want to do. They are unhappy and dissatisfied; they say, "If if were only Friday, I would be happy". Friday comes, and they are still miserable. "If I were only healthy, I would be happy," they say. When they get health, they want something else, because physical health has not satisfied them. They have not taken their thinking in hand.

As soon as you know the Truth and take your thinking in hand, if you are steering correctly, you can find the true place for you, you can be what you want to be, you can do what you want to do, you can have what you want to have. Your thinking is directed. You are no longer drifting in the breeze, you are directing your thinking.

When you get on a merry-go-round, you climb on one of the horses. There is a great deal of noise, and you go around and around and around. This goes on for several minutes. Then what happens? You are exactly where you began, when it stops (perhaps it should be called a sad-go-round, because it doesn't get you anywhere). As long as you are in the race mind you are on a merry-go-round, getting nowhere.

The way to get out of the race mind is by the scientific use of the Word. You have always had the power of the Word, but you have not always known you had it. Everything in your life today, you have spoken into existence by the Word at some time everything, for good or for evil.

The presence of God in you is the Word. God is not an old gentleman living up in the clouds, a sort of highly inflated archbishop. God is infinite life, love, truth: the Principle of all action in you. All the time you are seeking God outside, you are missing Him. The Word is not necessarily a spoken word. The Word is any definitely formulated thought.

Fox talked about the bible, thought, god, truth, thinking, wanting and the mind. I read and enjoyed a lot of his works. He was a very cool guy.